The modest marker showing the resting place of the relics of St John of Beverley in Beverley Minster, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. John trained under Abbess Hild at her monastery in Whitby, and went on to be Bishop of Hexham (687-705) and Bishop of York (705-714). It was John who ordained St Bede to the priesthood, and Bede records some of the miracles by then already attributed to him. When John died in 721, he was buried in the monastery’s Chapel of St Peter; the monastery was destroyed in the Viking raids of 859 to 880, but his relics found safety in York. In 1037, Aelfric Puttoc, Archbishop of York, glorified John as a saint (in those days Rome did not monopolise so-called ‘canonisation’) and brought his remains back home.
Part 1 of 2
OH the ineffable consolation of these our times especially, refreshing and memorable to all ages! that is, the gracious victory of the most Christian prince Henry the Fifth, king of England, and his army in the battle lately fought at Agincourt,* in the county of Picardy, which was granted to the English by the immense mercy of God, to the praise of His name, and the honour of the kingdom of England, on the feast of the translation of the said saint. In which feast, during the engagement of our countrymen with the French (as we and our brethren heard in the last convocation, from the true report of many, and especially of the inhabitants of the said country) holy oil flowed by drops like sweat out of his tomb, as an indication of the divine mercy toward his people,* without doubt through the merits of the said most holy man.
* See posts tagged Battle of Agincourt (3). It had long been the custom to take the banner of St John to war. St John came to the attention of English kings at The Battle of Brunanburh in 937, when King Athelstan attributed a resounding victory over the Kings of Dublin, Scotland and Strathclyde to St John’s intercession. The victory did much to set the modern borders of England. His banner was again present alongside those of St Peter and St Wilfrid at The Battle of the Standard in 1138. Edward II, Edward III, Henry V and Henry VI all carried his banner into battle.
* Throughout the campaign, Henry V had been convinced that God was on his side. This was no greedy ‘invasion’ of France: as far as Henry was concerned, he was reasserting his right to lands that for centuries had belonged to the heirs of William of Normandy (?1027-1087) and of Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204), wife of King Henry II, and even at the risk of his own life fulfilling his sacred duty of protection to the people who lived there. Why precisely the Convocation needed the confirmatory ‘report’ of French pilgrims from Picardy is not made clear: perhaps it was to establish the exact time of the battle, or perhaps the reliquary of the saint had been taken over to France, and it was there that the miracle occurred.
Précis
During the Battle of Agincourt on October 25th, 1415, the relics of eighth-century saint John of Beverley exuded myrrh. As it was also the feat of John’s translation from York to Beverley, the Convocation of York was deeply struck by the miracle, and took it as a great honour for the Church as well as for King and country. (58 / 60 words)
Part Two
A view of Beverley Minster in the East Riding of Yorkshire, a little over seven miles northwest of Kingston-upon-Hull. The reputation of St John was such that by 1377 Beverley had grown from a remote monastery into one of the twelve largest towns in England. The Minster as it is today was begun 1190, but was many generations in the making and the west end dates back only to the 1360s. Following the victory at Agincourt on October 25th, 1415, Henry V made a pilgrimage to Beverley, and adopted St John as one of the patron saints of the English Royal Family.
DESIRING therefore to dilate the worship of God in our province especially for the elevating the praise of so great a patron: we do, with the will, advice and consent of our brethren and clergy in the said convocation, as also at the special instance of our said most Christian prince, ordain that the feast of the deposition of the said saint, which is known to fall on the seventh day of May,* that is, on the morrow of John Port Latin,* be celebrated for the future every where within our province, in the manner of a feast of one confessor and pontiff falling after Easter, with the regimen of the choir, according to the use of the church of Sarum,* for ever.
Farther, we enact, decree, and ordain that every year for the future, the said twenty-fifth day of October,* in memory of so notable a deed, be every where throughout our province celebrated with nine lessons, the three first whereof shall be the proper lessons for Saints Crispin and Crispinian, the three middle ones for the translation of St John aforesaid; and the three last out of the exposition of the gospel for several martyrs, with the Service accustomed in such cases, according to the use of Sarum.
* May 7th is the primary feast of St John of Beverley, which celebrates the anniversary of his repose (here ‘deposition’) in 721.
* The feast of St John Port Latin on May 6th commemorated a tradition going back to the third century, and set down in The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine (?1229-?1298), which told of the arrest and banishment of St John the Divine, author of the fourth gospel and ‘beloved disciple’ of Jesus Christ. See St John Port Latin. It never crossed over into the Eastern churches, and the Roman Church abolished it in 1960.
* Before the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Sarum Use was a modified form of the Roman Rite of Mass as celebrated at Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire — the Latin name for Salisbury is Sarum. During the Middle Ages, there were several such ‘Uses’ in England, including two in the North East alone, the York Use and the Durham Use. All were suppressed in something of a knee-jerk reaction after the Reformation and replaced with a simpler, sterner liturgy called the Tridentine Rite, so named because it was imposed by order of the Council of Trent, held in the Italian city of Trento in 1545-1563.
* October 25th is the secondary feast of St John of Beverley, which celebrates the translation (moving) in 1037 of his relics from York, where he was originally buried, to the Minster at Beverley, which had been founded upon the monastery which he worked so hard to build up during his lifetime.
Précis
Acting on the instructions of King Henry V, who had taken a close personal interest, the Convocation very willingly raised the feast of John’s repose on May 7th to a higher class, and likewise enriched the liturgy on October 25th, the anniversary of his translation, with a special celebration of Nine Lessons chosen to mark the connection with Agincourt. (59 / 60 words)
